Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for St. John's East for his ongoing work in promoting occupational health and safety for offshore workers. He has been a very strong and eloquent voice in the House of Commons about this.
The member is not raising a technical point, but a very important fundamental point. Indeed, workers across the country are now concerned about the impact of the budget bill.
One might ask why the government would put forward Bill C-5 to establish occupational health and safety, but then in the budget bill take away the health and safety officers who are part of the provisions of Bill C-5 and give those powers to the minister. That makes no sense. However, much of what the Conservative government does makes no sense whatsoever.
The Conservatives like to talk a good line about health and safety, but we have seen a number of tragedies in rail safety, pipeline safety, and grain safety increasing because the government is so foolhardy, reckless, and irresponsible.
The Conservatives say that they are against crime, but then they cut crime prevention programs. They say that they are for our police officers and firefighters, yet they refuse to put in place the public safety officer compensation fund that would compensate the families of police officers and firefighters when they pass away in the line of duty. This compensation fund was approved by Parliament.
Everything the government does seems to be clumsily implemented. The Conservatives just do not seem to understand the importance of getting it right in government, and we have seen this.
The member for St. John's East raised this point. We have seen bill after bill botched in the first attempts, which then have to be corrected later on.
This is not a small technical issue. The Conservatives have to come clean and explain why they are trying to cut Bill C-5 at the same time they are presenting it in the House of Commons. I hope somebody from the government will actually understand and explain these discrepancies and contradictions over the course of the debate this afternoon.